The present invention relates to a commercial cooking apparatus, and in particular, to a high velocity turbulent air oven with high thermal mass.
In the commercial food service industry there is a need for faster cooking so that the food service establishment may serve a greater amount of patrons at a faster rate. High speed ovens offer a solution to increase the food service establishments' efficiency and speed of service for certain food products. “Hybrid” speed cooking ovens utilized microwave or radiant enhancement to improve the speed of cooking of convection, radiant or steam cooking ovens. Microwave energy can speed up the cooking rates of conventional convection or steam cooking ovens by sending microwave radiation through the food product thus rotating and agitating the molecules within the food product. Radiant heating which sends infrared radiation from nearby heating elements, such as calrod heaters, also agitate the molecules within the food product to speed up cooking. Other speed cooking ovens have been developed which use convection heating alone, without microwave energy, to provide high-speed cooking for a single rack of food, commonly found in conveyor type cooking ovens.
Convection ovens providing high-speed cooking with or without the addition of microwave energy, typically includes a blower or fan for circulating heated air through the heat chamber. The oven typically includes a cooking rack or tray holding the food product and allowing, the circulating heated air to flow through the cooking rack to heat the food.
One of the challenges of high-speed convection cooking is that the oven must achieve fast cooking of the food product without burning the outside of the food product but still create a desired crispness, for example, when cooking pizza or other bread-based items which desire a moist inside and crisp outer crust. The criteria for cooking is complicated by the fact that the circulation of air cannot disrupt the contents of the food product, such as the toppings of a pizza, but still introduce enough heat into the oven cavity for proper cooking. Moreover, it is difficult to accommodate multiple cooking racks within the oven with the challenge of hotspots created by the racks interfering with the air flow. Normally, the cooking of either the top or bottom of the food product is compromised by the addition of a second or third shelf creating cold spots.